Small Law Firms

Cryptocurrency & Blockchain: It’s Not Just A Biglaw Practice Area

Legal issues surrounding blockchain technology impact more and more small law clients.

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Over the past few years, it seemed that every few months, another Biglaw firm would announce the launch of a specialty practice group devoted to cryptocurrency and Fintech. Fast forward and even the prestigious Chambers & Partners Ranking Guide (think of it as Avvo or Yelp for Biglaw) now has a dedicated category that rates Biglaw cryptocurrency practice areas. The same holds true for blockchain, with firms like Hogan Lovells experimenting with Ethereum-based Smart Contracts.

But cryptocurrency and blockchain aren’t the exclusive province of Biglaw or boutique practices with Fintech or startup expertise. Instead, cryptocurrency issues are cropping up in traditional solo and small law consumer-oriented work. And many document management platforms traditionally used by solos and smalls are introducing block-chain based products. Consider the following:

  • A number of recent divorce cases involve battles over cryptocurrency assets which have soared in value over the past year;
  • As more individuals invest in Bitcoin, there’s a need for estate planning lawyers to gain familiarity with disposition of cryptocurrency assets at death in order to advise clients;
  • Cities are testing out blockchain as a way to record property transactions — and many other players are exploring technologies to streamline real estate transactions and closings;
  • NetDocuments, one of the oldest and most popular cloud-based document management platforms for lawyers just announced a proof of concept for the integration of NetDocuments’ cloud platform with blockchain technology, enabling firms to validate document existence, details, status, and metadata via a verified and distributed digital ledger. This could be a game changer for solo and small firms who could rely on their document management systems to verify and validate a wide variety of transactions.

The rapid technology developments pose a challenge for many solo and small firm lawyers who desperately need this expertise but who may lack the time to develop it. A couple of suggestions:

  • Hire a hungry new associate who can be trained as the firm’s resident expert in blockchain and cryptocurrency as it relates to family law, probate or other law firm practice areas. Once your firm has developed the expertise in-house, you can sell it to others;
  • Encourage your state and local bar associations to offer meaningful CLE and training on emerging practice areas. And yes, this may mean that the bars have to pony up real money to hire experts who will offer meaningful training, and not just use the CLE sessions as a way to pimp their own practices;
  • Start a learning group with other lawyers with similar interests and divvy up different areas that you will each master and then share with each other (kind of like a law school study group).

The pace of technology developments and technology penetration down to consumers isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. Solo and small firm lawyers need to come up with solutions to keep pace to capably represent today’s clients.

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Carolyn ElefantCarolyn Elefant has been blogging about solo and small firm practice at MyShingle.comsince 2002 and operated her firm, the Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant PLLC, even longer than that. She’s also authored a bunch of books on topics like starting a law practice, social media, and 21st century lawyer representation agreements (affiliate links). If you’re really that interested in learning more about Carolyn, just Google her. The Internet never lies, right? You can contact Carolyn by email at elefant@myshingle.comor follow her on Twitter at @carolynelefant.

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